• taylor swift
• he said the way my blue eyes shined put those georgia stars to shame that night, i said, "that's a lie"
• as far as i'm concerned, you're just another picture to burn
• i fake a smile so he won't see
• i don't know what i want, so don't ask me cause i'm still trying to figure it out
• and you come away with a great little story of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you
• and i know you wouldn't have told nobody if I died, died for you
• i've been a lot of lonely places, i've never been on the outside
• if you and i are a story that never gets told, if what you are is a daydream i'll never get to hold, at least you'll know
• i looked at you like the stars that shined in the sky, the pretty lights
• we could be a beautiful miracle, unbelievable, instead of just invisible

⠀

• fearless (taylor's version)
• and i don't know why but with you i'd dance in a storm in my best dress, fеarless
• 'cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you you're gonna believe them
• so i sneak out to the garden to see you, we keep quiet 'cause we're dead if they knew, so close your eyes, escape this town for a little while
• romeo, save me, they're trying to tell me how to feel, this love is difficult, but it's real
• all those other girls, well, they're beautiful but would they write a song for you?
• well, my mistakе, i didn't know to be in love you had to fight to have thе upper hand
• have you ever thought just maybe you belong with me?
• people are people and sometimes we change our minds
• it's 2 a.m., feeling like i just lost a friend
• Never knew I could feel that much and that's the way I loved you
• we're on the phone and without a warning i realize your laugh is the best sound i have ever heard
• in the middle of the night when i'm in this dream it's like a million little stars spelling out your name
• but no amount of freedom gets you clean, i've still got you all over me
• the best and worst day of june was the one that i met you, with your hands in your pockets and your "don't you wish you had me?" grin, well i did, so i smiled and i melted like a child

⠀

• speak now (taylor's version)
• wondering why we bother with love, if it never lasts
• and i remember that fight, 2:30 a.m as everything was slipping right out of our hands i ran out, crying, and you followed me out into the street braced myself for the goodbye 'cause that's all i've ever known then, you took me by surprise you said, "i'll never leave you alone."
• the way you move is like a full on rainstorm and i'm a house of cards
• maybe this is wishful thinking, probably mindless dreaming but if we loved again, i swear i'd love you right
• there's the silence, there's my last chance, i stand up with shaking hands, all eyes on me, horrified looks from everyone in the room but i'm only looking at you
• long were the nights when my days once revolved around you, counting my footsteps, praying the floor won't fall through... again
• and i lived in your chess game but you changed the rules everyday
• wonderin' which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight, well, i stopped pickin' up and this song is to let you know why
• well, maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame, or maybe it's you and your sick need to give love and take it away
• dear john, i see it all now that you're gone, don't you think i was too young to be messed with? the girl in the dress cried the whole way home. dear john, i see it all now, it was wrong, don't you think nineteen's too young to be played by your dark, twisted games when i loved you so?
• you are an expert at sorry and keeping lines blurry, never impressed by me acing your tests
• all the girls that you've run dry have tired lifeless eyes 'cause you burned them out but i took your matches before fire could catch me so don't look now, i'm shining like fireworks over your sad empty town
• the girl in the dress wrote you a song, you should've known, don't you think i was too young? you should've known
• you have pointed out my flaws again as if i don't already see them, i walk with my head down, trying to block you out 'cause i'll never impress you, i just wanna feel okay again
• but you held your pride like you should've held me

⠀

• red (taylor’s version)
• we learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts
• love is a ruthless game, unless you play it good and right
• these are the hands of fate, you're my achilles heel
• remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes, tell myself it's time now, gotta let go but moving on from him is impossible when i still see it all in my head in burning red
• put your lips close to mine as long as they don't touch
• out of focus, eye to eye 'til the gravity's too much, and i'll do anything you say if you say it with your hands
• i hear the sound of my own voice asking you to stay
• all we are is skin and bone, trained to get along
• your name has echoed through my mind and i just think you should know that nothing safe is worth the drive
• and the saddest fear comes creeping in, that you never loved me or her, or anyone, or anything
• we're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time, it's miserable and magical
• i don't know about you but i'm feelin' twenty-two
• i bet it never, ever occurred to you that i can't say hello to you and risk another goodbye
• we made quite a mess, babe, it's probably better off this way
• and i confess, baby, in my dreams, you're touching my face and asking me if i wanna try again with you and i almost do
• i'm really gonna miss you picking fights and me falling for it, screaming that I'm right and you would hide away and find your peace of mind with some indie record that's much cooler than mine
• this is the last time i'm asking you this, put my name at the top of your list
• tonight i'm gonna dance like you were in this room but i don't wanna dance if i'm not dancing with you
• long handwritten notes, deep in your pocket, words, how little they mean when you're a little too late, i stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket, good girls, hopeful they'll be and long they will wait
• in dreams, i meet you in warm conversation, and we both wake in lonely beds and different cities, and time is taking its sweet time erasing you and you've got your demons and, darling, they all look like me
• distance, timing, breakdown, fighting, silence, the train runs off its tracks, kiss me, try to fix it, could you just try to listen? hang up, give up, and for the life of us, we can't get back
• and they tell you that you're lucky, but you're so confused 'cause you don't feel pretty, you just feel used
• come back and tell me why i'm feeling like i've missed you all this time and meet me there tonight and let me know that it's not all in my mind
• don't you see the starlight, starlight? don't you dream impossible things?
• i've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break, and burn, and end
• what do you say when tears are streaming down your face in front of everyone you know? and what do you do when the one who means the most to you is the one who didn't show?
• this is falling in love in the cruelest way, this is falling for you when you are worlds away
• but, honey, i am no one's exception, this, i have previously learned
• race cars on the kitchen floor, plastic dinosaurs, i love you to the moon and back
• i know the bravest thing I ever did was run
• push my love away like it was some kind of loaded gun, oh, you never thought i'd run
• how can a person know everything at eighteen but nothing at twenty-two? and will you still want me when i'm nothing new?
• how long will it be cute, all this crying in my room? when you can't blame it on my youth and roll your eyes with affection
• and my cheeks are growing tired from turning red and faking smiles, are we only biding time 'til i lose your attention and someone else lights up the room? people love an ingénue
• how did i go from growing up to breaking down? and i wake up in the middle of the night, it's like i can feel time moving
• and it's strange how your face doesn't look so innocent, your secret has its consequence and that's on you, babe
• 'cause you could be the one that i love, i could be the one that you dream of, a message in a bottle is all i can do, standin' here, hopin' it gets to you, you could be the one that i keep, and i could be the reason you can't sleep at night
• but now that we're done and it's over i bet you couldn't believe when you realized i'm harder to forget than i was to leave and i bet you think about me
• mr. superior thinkin' do you have all the space that you need? i don't have to be your shrink to know that you'll never be happy
• block it all out, the voices so loud, sayin' "why did you let her go?" does it make you feel sad that the love that you're lookin' for is the love that you had?
• i bet you think about me when you say "oh my god, she's insane, she wrote a song about me"
• if i was standing there in your apartment i'd take that bomb in your head and disarm it, i'd say i love you even at your darkest and please don't go
• he says he doesn't believe anything much he hears these days, i say, "believe in one thing, i won't go away"
• and my so-called friends, they don't know i'd drive away before i let you go, so give me a reason and don't say no, no
• there's a chain 'round your throat, piece of paper where i wrote "i'll wait for you", there's a key on the chain, there's a picture in a frame, take it with you
• so you laugh like a child and i'll sing like no one cares, no one to be, no one to tell
• and the note from the locket, you keep it in your pocket since i gave it to you, there's a heart on your sleeve i'll take it when i leave and hold it for you
• there's been this hole in my heart, this thing was a shot in the dark, say you'll never let 'em tear us apart and i'll hold onto you while we run
• i wish i could fly, i'd pick you up and we'd go back in time, i'd write this in the sky, i miss you like it was the very first night
• i'm the one on the phone as you whisper "do you know how much i miss you?"
• i wish that we could go back in time and i'd say to you "i miss you like it was the very first night"
• i walked through the door with you, the air was cold but somethin' 'bout it felt like home somehow
• autumn leaves fallin' down like pieces into place, and i can picture it after all these days
• you taught me 'bout your past, thinkin' your future was me
• and i was thinkin' on the drive down, "any time now he's gonna say it's love," you never called it what it was
• 'til we were dead and gone and buried, check the pulse and come back swearin' it's the same after three months in the grave
• and then you wondered where it went to as i reached for you but all i felt was shame and you held my lifeless frame
• and i know it's long gone and there was nothing else i could do and i forget about you long enough to forget why i needed to
• 'cause there we are again in the middle of the night, we're dancin' 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light
• and there we are again when nobody had to know, you kept me like a secret, but i kept you like an oath
• well, maybe we got lost in translation, maybe i asked for too much but maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up
• and you call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of bein' honest
• i'm a crumpled-up piece of paper lyin' here 'cause i remember it all
• they say all's well that ends well, but i'm in a new hell every time you double-cross my mind
• you, that's what happened, you
• time won't fly, it's like i'm paralyzed by it, i'd like to be my old self again, but i'm still tryin' to find it
• but you keep my old scarf from that very first week 'cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
• 'cause there we are again when i loved you so, back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known
• and i was never good at tellin' jokes, but the punch line goes "i'll get older, but your lovers stay my age"
• from when your brooklyn broke my skin and bones i'm a soldier who's returning half her weight
• and did the twin flame bruise paint you blue? just between us, did the love affair maim you too?
• 'cause in this city's barren cold i still remember the first fall of snow and how it glistened as it fell, i remember it all too well
• just between us, did the love affair maim you all too well? just between us, do you remember it all too well?

⠀

• folklore
• you know the greatest films of all time were never made
• and if my wishes came true it would've been you
• in my defense, i have none for never leaving well enough alone
• i persist and resist the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different would everything be different today?
• you drew stars around my scars but now i'm bleedin'
• i knew you tried to change the ending, peter losing wendy
• but i knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss i knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs the smell of smoke would hang around this long 'cause i knew everything when i was young i knew i'd curse you for the longest time chasin' shadows in the grocery line i knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired and you'd be standin' in my front porch light and i knew you'd come back to me
• who knows, if i never showed up, what could’ve been there goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen i had a marvelous time ruining everything
• i think i’ve seen this film before and i didn’t like the ending you’re not my homeland anymore so what am i defending now?
• and if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes, too
• even on my worst day, did i deserve, babe all the hell you gave me? ’cause i loved you, i swear i loved you ’til my dying day
• i didn't have it in myself to go with grace and you're the hero flying around, saving face and if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake? cursing my name, wishing i stayed, look at how my tears ricochet
• you know i didn't want to have to haunt you but what a ghostly scene
• i didn't have it in myself to go with grace 'cause when i'd fight, you used to tell me i was brave
• and i can go anywhere i want, anywhere i want, just not home
• and you can aim for my heart, go for blood but you would still miss me in your bones and i still talk to you (when i'm screaming at the sky) and when you can't sleep at night (you hear my stolen lullabies)
• you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same
• i know they said the end is near but i'm still on my tallest tiptoes, spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you
• i'm still on that tightrope, i'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me and i'm still a believer, but i don't know why, i've never been a natural, all i do is try, try, try, i'm still on that trapeze, i'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me
• are there still beautiful things?
• and though i can’t recall your face i still got love for you
• please picture me in the weeds before i learned civility i used to scream ferociously any time i wanted
• your back beneath the sun, wishin' i could write my name on it
• back when we were still changin' for the better wanting was enough for me, it was enough to live for the hope of it all, cancel plans just in case you'd call and say, "meet me behind the mall" so much for summer love and saying "us" 'cause you weren't mine to lose
• i didn't know if you'd care if i came back, i have a lot of regrets about that
• and it's hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound, it's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you
• you're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town
• and i just wanted you to know that this is me trying (and maybe i don't quite know what to say) i just wanted you to know that this is me trying, at least i'm trying
• and that's the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and longing stares it's born from just one single glance but it dies and it dies and it dies a million little times
• and you wanna scream don't call me "kid," don't call me "baby" look at this godforsaken mess that you made me you showed me colors you know i can't see with anyone else don't call me "kid," don't call me "baby" look at this idiotic fool that you made me you taught me a secret language i can't speak with anyone else
• and you know damn well for you, i would ruin myself a million little times
• and isn't it just so pretty to think all along there was some invisible string tying you to me?
• do you see my face in the neighbor's lawn? does she smile? or does she mouth, "fuck you forever"?
• and there's nothing like a mad woman, what a shame she went mad, no one likes a mad woman, you made her like that
• with you i serve, with you i fall down, down, watch you breathe in, watch you breathing out, out
• only twenty minutes to sleep but you dream of some epiphany, just one single glimpse of relief to make some sense of what you've seen
• standing in your cardigan, kissin' in my car again, stopped at a streetlight, you know i miss you
• all these people think love's for show but i would die for you in secret
• the devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me, would it be enough if i could never give you peace?
• stood on the cliffside screaming, "give me a reason" your faithless love's the only hoax i believe in
• don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do
• i want auroras and sad prose, i want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet 'cause i haven't moved in years and i want you right here
• take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die, i don't belong and, my beloved, neither do you. those windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry, i'm setting off, but not without my muse, no, not without you

⠀

• evermore
• i'm begging for you to take my hand, wreck my plans
• your midas touch on the chevy door, november flush and your flannel cure
• one for the money, two for the show, i never was ready so i watch you go
• gleaming, twinkling, eyes like sinking ships on waters, so inviting, i almost jump in
• i don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
• my mind turns your life into folklore, i can't dare to dream about you anymore, at dinner parties i won't call you out on your contrarian shit and the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it 'cause it fades into the gray of my day-old tea 'cause it will never be
• there's an ache in you, put there by the ache in me
• sleep in half the day just for old times' sake
• i won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay, so i'll go back to l.a. and the so-called friends who'll write books about me if I ever make it and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm fakin' and the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own to leave the warmest bed i've ever known we could call it even, even though i'm leaving and i'll be yours for the weekend
• if it's all in my head, tell me now, tell me I've got it wrong somehow
• i know my love should be celebrated but you tolerate it
• i made you my temple, my mural, my sky, now i'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life, drawing hearts in the byline, always taking up too much space or time, you assume i'm fine, but what would you do if i break free and leave us in ruins, took this dagger in me and removed it, gain the weight of you, then lose it, believe me, i could do it
• they think she did it, but they just can't prove it, she thinks i did it, but she just can't prove it
• showed you all of my hiding spots, i was dancing when the music stopped and in the disbelief, i can't face reinvention, i haven't met the new me yet
• there'll be happiness after you but there was happiness because of you, both of these things can be true
• there is happiness past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries, beyond the terror in the nightfall, haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime, leave it all behind and there is happiness
• tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk? when did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?
• there'll be happiness after me but there was happiness because of me, both of these things i believe, there is happiness in our history, across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise dappled with the flickers of light from the dress i wore at midnight
• after giving you the best i had, tell me what to give after that
• and damn, dorothea, they all wanna be ya but are you still the same soul i met under the bleachers? well, i guess i'll never know
• did i close my fist around something delicate? did i shatter you?
• will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?
• how's one to know? i'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones in a faith-forgotten land in from the snow your touch brought forth an incandescent glow tarnished but so grand and the old widow goes to the stone every day but i don't, i just sit here and wait, grieving for the living oh, goddamn my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand, taking mine, but it's been promised to another oh, i can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland, my house of stone, your ivy grows and now i'm covered in you. i wish to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed. he's in the room, your opal eyes are all i wish to see, he wants what's only yours
• clover blooms in the fields, spring breaks loose, the time is near what would he do if he found us out? crescent moon, coast is clear, spring breaks loose, but so does fear, he's gonna burn this house to the ground how's one to know? i'd live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time, so tell me to run or dare to sit and watch what we'll become and drink my husband's wine
• so yeah, it's a fire, it's a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it, you started it, so yeah, it's a war, it's the goddamn fight of my life and you started it
• and you asked me to dance but i said, "dancin' is a dangerous game"
• oh, i thought, this is gonna be one of those things, now i know i'm never gonna love again
• now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon
• forever is the sweetest con
• no more tug of war now i just know there's more, no more keepin' score now i just keep you warm and my waves meet your shore ever and evermore
• never be so kind you forget to be clever, never be so clever you forget to be kind
• i should've asked you questions, i should've asked you how to be, asked you to write it down for me, should've kept every grocery store receipt 'cause every scrap of you would be taken from me
• if i didn't know better i'd think you were still around, i know better but i still feel you all around, i know better but you're still around
• i know i'm just a wrinkle in your new life, staying friends would iron it out so nice
• can't remember what i used to fight for, i rewind thе tape, but all it does is pause on thе very moment all was lost
• and when i was shipwrecked i thought of you in the cracks of light i dreamed of you it was real enough to get me through i swear you were there
• and i was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step and i couldn't be sure i had a feeling so peculiar this pain wouldn't be for evermore
• help, i'm still at the restaurant, still sitting in a corner i haunt, cross-legged in the dim light, they say, "what a sad sight"
• that old familiar body ache, the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul, you know when it's time to go
• he's got my past frozen behind glass but i've got me